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Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.
Wangari Maathai
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Wangari Maathai
Age: 71 †
Born: 1940
Born: April 1
Died: 2011
Died: September 25
Biologist
Environmentalist
Political Activist
Politician
Teacher
Veterinarian
Wangari Maathaï
Maathai
Wangari Maathai
Tree
Environment
Talking
Hole
Water
Holes
Nature
Survive
Done
Plant
Thing
Havens
Make
Haven
More quotes by Wangari Maathai
If you make mistakes that is alright because we all make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. You gain confidence from learning, failing and rising again.
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We need to promote development that does not destroy our environment.
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Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious.
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When you know who you are you are free.
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But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.
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It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.
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We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!
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I knew that I was not doing anything wrong, and I knew in my mind I was doing the right thing. I knew that the people who were going against me were not going against me for a good purpose. I knew that they were trying to justify their corruption and misgovernance.
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The people are starving. They need food they need medicine they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station.
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The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.
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It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
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As a scientist I cannot say we don't want to hear anything about GMOs, because these are advances in science. But I think its also important, especially when you are dealing with food, to be cautious.
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That's the way I do things when I want to celebrate, I always plant a tree. And so I got an indigenous tree, called Nandi flame, it has this beautiful red flowers. When it is in flower it is like it is in flame.
Wangari Maathai
We all share one planet and are one hummanity, there is no escaping this reality.
Wangari Maathai
The essential role of the environment is still marginal in discussions about poverty. While we continue to debate these initiatives, environmental degradation, including the loss of biodiversity and topsoil, accelerates, causing development efforts to falter.
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For example, they have land. The government of Qatar wants to lease the Tana River delta, which is in Kenya, from the Kenyan government, so that they can produce food there. People in Kenya need food. We have people who have studied agriculture. Why is it that if we really need food, we cannot go into the delta and develop our own food?
Wangari Maathai
There are certain areas where foreign investors can help the local people to generate wealth, and improve their quality of life. Some companies, for example, Del Monte, which produces pineapples in Kenya, pay a huge amount of taxes, I am sure, to the Kenyan government, and they do create jobs for thousands of locals.
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You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive. That's what makes the difference
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It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari Maathai
The planet needs trees. If there is indeed that carbon dioxide out there in the atmosphere, the only species on the planet that can actually trap it for us in a natural process of photosynthesis are the trees.
Wangari Maathai